How Factory Layouts and Installations Impact Food Safety  

Mikkel Svold (00:09):
Hello and welcome to Behind Clean Lines, an NGI podcast. Today, we, once again, focusing back on what's overhead in the production facilities. That could be raceways, it could be all kinds of installations, production installations, that is typically installed above the machinery, with us again, we have Steve Voelzke from Robroy Industries in Texas. U.S. Are you with us again?

Steve Voelzke (00:32):
Yes, sir. I'm here, bright in the morning, ready to go.

Mikkel Svold (00:09):

Hello and welcome to Behind Clean Lines, an NGI podcast. Today, we, once again, focusing back on what's overhead in the production facilities. That could be raceways, it could be all kinds of installations, production installations, that is typically installed above the machinery, with us again, we have Steve Voelzke from Robroy Industries in Texas. U.S. Are you with us again?

Steve Voelzke (00:32):

Yes, sir. I'm here, bright in the morning, ready to go.

Mikkel Svold (00:37):

Perfect. In the last episode, we touched upon, well, quite a lot of things actually. We touched upon a more holistic approach to the design, both of the facility, but also of the equipment. We talked about the fact that, sometimes, overhead installations is some sort of an afterthought. I think where we are going to start today is from more practical perspective. We are going to look into more what can companies do, what are they already doing, and how can we, of course, educate both workers, construction workers, and, well, designers, all those kind of people, on this topic. I think, Steve, just to begin with, what do you see right now companies are already doing when we are talking overhead installations or production installations?

Steve Voelzke (01:34):

I think the cleanest environments that I go into today are those that really design that building envelope inside their building for their production areas. They really take advantage of that space above with an interstitial space and to do a lot of the infrastructure up there, so all of their horizontal runs and that kind of stuff are above the ceiling and then they go straight down with either conduit or basket trays straight down into the environment. That seems to solve a lot of issues. It makes it a little bit simpler. There is some expense, obviously, to do that, but from a cleanliness standpoint, it's probably one of the better designs that I see out there. I think that's one of the things that people are doing in new facilities.

(02:24):

Excuse me. The other thing is just more education. A lot of times, it's not the designs or the things that are done upfront. It's usually the things that are done that weren't planned or the part of the project that wasn't planned that ends up basically being the area that, "Oh, man. That just didn't work out the way that we wanted it to," and so I think that we all have to realize that there is a little bit of a journey to this. It's been an evolution from where we have been 10 years ago even, but it continues to get better. New design, we're really doing after action reviews. We're actually consistently getting better, I think, throughout the process, and I think that that's even now extending itself to working together for the long term. It's not just about this one project. It's about what's the new facility look like, but then what's the next one? What are we going to take from this project to the next one? I think that's working together a little bit more to understand what we're trying to accomplish.

Mikkel Svold (03:32):

You say that it has developed. Is that development over the last 50 years or is it rapidly over the last, let's say, decade something?

Steve Voelzke (03:41):

Yeah. In the U.S., I would say that there was the Food Modernization Act that happened to us over 20 years ago now. That was an accelerator that really pushed for this how can we do better with our food supply. In the U.S., I think it's one in six people get sick every year. About 3000 people die of food-related issues in regards to contamination. That has consistently gotten better. Food recalls have consistently gotten better due to turnover, and the things that we're dealing with today, we actually took a little bit of a step-down over the last couple of years. That's mainly because, I think, the turnover that we talked about in the last podcast, the turnover in the industry, not only the construction industry that builds the facilities, but also the facilities that we have, and so I think the next step that we need to take is how do we evolve to the next level where we're making it easier.

(04:52):

We have to make it easier to clean, we have to make it easier to install correctly, and then we have to also give what's the impact of an incorrect installation. When we have gone to the marketplace to try to help them get their job completed, it's about training. We do a certification program in our product category, and part of that certification is I'm not trying to teach an electrician how to install products. He knows how to do that. But there are certain considerations when you're in a food environment that aren't normal for... An environment where washdown doesn't have to happen or where food contamination is a challenge. Just making people aware that there's a different approach to take and a few things that you need to do a little bit different, it's a huge piece of it, but you got to do that because of turnover and because of the things that are happening.

(05:49):

You've got to make sure that you're diligent about doing that at time of construction. The other thing that we've done, that's really worked well, is we've worked with clients where we've done periodic audits during construction. It's not to point out what you're doing wrong. It's to say, "Hey, do it like this instead of like this," and catching it before there's this huge infrastructure already in place. How can we catch it before it happens? Train, go back and look maybe two weeks later or a month later and say, "Hey, do this. Do this, but not this."

Mikkel Svold (06:25):

I'm even thinking, catch it before production begins.

Steve Voelzke (06:29):

Yeah. It's during the construction phase, if we can catch it there and we can continue to improve that. It's done two things for our company. One, it's helped our customer accomplish what they need to accomplish, but it's also allowed us to see, "Hey, we have to make that easier to install," or, "Hey, we have to solve that problem because somebody installs it differently than what we thought."

Mikkel Svold (06:51):

You actually also get something out of it in return. Not only educating the construction workers setting up the plant, but also taking with you back learnings that, "Oh, this is maybe not as brilliant as we thought it was." Yeah.

Steve Voelzke (07:06):

Well, yeah. It's because sometimes if you design in a vacuum, you're going to miss the real practical application of something. We have one particular client that we've worked with for the last three years, and we meet every month for sometimes 10 minutes, sometimes a half hour, an hour with the Capital Projects team, and it's a standing meeting. With that meeting, it's really become an initiative. Sometimes they have lots of projects going on and we're talking about the different projects, and sometimes we're just having a collaboration to say, "Hey, this is what's going on in this plant. This is some things that we caught on a bill of material that was sent into us." That elevation of just putting attention on this part of the process continually makes them evolve in this area. Yeah, it's a two-way street.

(08:03):

I think it just open it up that communication, making sure there's a value proposition that we're creating, because our customers don't really care about [inaudible 00:08:12], and settings, and the things that we provide, but what they really care about is a more reliable and a more cleanable facility. If we can provide that based on understanding their world a little bit more, I think we all do a little bit better. My encouragement is we all have this product project, or this initiative or, this outcome that we're looking for. If we align on that, I think we make better solutions.

Mikkel Svold (08:41):

Is it for all suppliers like you are, is it for all sub-vendor suppliers to take on that role of trying to educate whether main company or what's the name of that, I don't know, but you know what I mean? The project company.

Steve Voelzke (09:00):

It's not normal. It really depends on the type of focus a company has. We like niche markets. We like to solve problems that haven't been solved before, and so when we take a look at something, we want to change and accomplish what our customers are trying to accomplish. We're not trying to be big. We're trying to be really good. To me, it's a lot more fun, because you can build a general product for a general market, but this is a specific application and a specific target and our company loves to do that kind of thing. We're very niche-oriented. I think it takes a certain type of company, but the market's a sizable market. It's a lot of people that are in the food and bev market. This is their vertical market. I don't think it's too special that basically nobody should do it, but I think anybody that's playing in this market has an obligation, I think, to design and build better products that help the customer solve what they're trying to solve.

Mikkel Svold (10:10):

Yeah. Well, I agree. Absolutely.

Steve Voelzke (10:13):

Yeah. Mikkel, it takes getting dirty. You have to go out. I mean, myself personally, I'm president of Robroy Industries but I love our customers, so guess what? I'm climbing around on equipment, looking at what can we do to make things better, but that's part of the joy of accomplishing something bigger and broader than just providing equipment.

Mikkel Svold (10:36):

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Our time is flying, so I just want to recap maybe, I don't know if it's a recap, but I want to see if we can come down to some practical approaches. What steps would you recommend OEMs take to push this agenda in their own design, in their equipment? What steps to make things easier to install, easier to clean? Do you have anything?

Steve Voelzke (11:06):

Yeah, I think that instead of just the equipment design, you got to take your equipment design all the way to the practical running. That means installed. Is the overall system that I install, is it hygienically sound? Is it reliable? Is there anything that the sanitation department is going to do different that I'm not even thinking about? Go watch it be sanitized and say, "Oh, they're putting a bag over that because that's a problem." Well, guess what? It's not being sanitized then. My encouragement is really look at it in operation. My encouragement to people that provide is if there's an installer, make sure that they're not [inaudible 00:12:00] your design practices by doing an installation different.

(12:06):

I think that you have to be serious about education all the way to the construction, and then I think it's an evolution. Don't think you're going to get there day one and don't think you can just make this one initiative. Keep going, get feedback. I think that if you focus on the fact that our clients want a more reliable, safer system. We did a study before we even started, and there were two things. Our customers needed more reliability, and they were... Number one concern was contamination. It cost $10 million at a minimum for a feed recall in the U.S., and that doesn't include brand issues or anything like that.

Mikkel Svold (12:55):

Which is also very significant.

Steve Voelzke (12:57):

It's significant, and that's not even the legal... I mean, that's just like, "Let's get that stuff back out of the marketplace." By the way, it's not even any cheaper, so realizing everybody has a piece of that and realize everybody has a contribution to that. I think getting everybody on the same page is probably the most important thing, and then learning from every single installation, every single production facility that you build or modify for that matter.

Mikkel Svold (13:28):

Yeah, because we haven't talked about that and maybe we have just a short minute to touch upon it. You mentioned these double walling and you have ceilings that are hollow, so you have all your channels inside there. What if you are retrofitting?

Steve Voelzke (13:45):

Yeah, I think that's the issue of design as well. If we can design systems that have the ability to expand or to be changed without cutting, and drilling, and modifying to the point where you wouldn't want to do that in your production facility, if we can design better where we can make it easier for that to happen, easier for additions to happen without having to risk physical contamination, then that's one element of it. The other element is we just have to, again, train people to realize that there's bigger risks here and it's not a normal construction environment. It's something that is different and there's risk here that we should make sure that we're dealing with.

Mikkel Svold (14:36):

It's education on all levels, basically. It's not just all levels within the brand owner or final organization, but also the construction workers building the plant. It's the entire supply chain of equipment providers, and then, of course, comes all the operational staff. We have cleaners, but also... Yeah.

Steve Voelzke (14:57):

Well, and Mikkel, we've been fortunate because even the contractors, everybody that we've worked with, have been... We've learned just as much from them as they have from us. If we can continue to work together to take care of the last 10% that we got to fix, then we're seeing some great stuff, and learning a lot, and actually building a better product. Again, it's about a more cleaner and a more reliable system than we got all things going for us.

Mikkel Svold (15:31):

I think let those be the last words. Steve Voelzke from Robroy, thank you so much for joining. It was a real pleasure.

Steve Voelzke (15:38)

Yeah, you too.

Mikkel Svold (15:40):
To the listeners out there, if you like this episode, share it with your friends or colleagues, and maybe they can learn something as well I did today. If you have any questions or if you have topics that you want us to bring up on this podcast, do reach out to us on podcast@ngi-global.com. That was podcast@ngi-global.com. It's a little bit tricky to say, but I got it. Yeah. Of course, give it a like or give it a share. Give it a review, if you want. I'm sure that inside of that Spotify or Apple podcast that you are listening from, you can also comment directly in there, so feel free to do that. It'll be always nice to hear from you out there listening. I think that's it for today. All there to say is just thank you so much for listening.

Mikkel Svold (00:37):
Perfect. In the last episode, we touched upon, well, quite a lot of things actually. We touched upon a more holistic approach to the design, both of the facility, but also of the equipment. We talked about the fact that, sometimes, overhead installations is some sort of an afterthought. I think where we are going to start today is from more practical perspective. We are going to look into more what can companies do, what are they already doing, and how can we, of course, educate both workers, construction workers, and, well, designers, all those kind of people, on this topic. I think, Steve, just to begin with, what do you see right now companies are already doing when we are talking overhead installations or production installations?

Steve Voelzke (01:34):
I think the cleanest environments that I go into today are those that really design that building envelope inside their building for their production areas. They really take advantage of that space above with an interstitial space and to do a lot of the infrastructure up there, so all of their horizontal runs and that kind of stuff are above the ceiling and then they go straight down with either conduit or basket trays straight down into the environment. That seems to solve a lot of issues. It makes it a little bit simpler. There is some expense, obviously, to do that, but from a cleanliness standpoint, it's probably one of the better designs that I see out there. I think that's one of the things that people are doing in new facilities.

(02:24):
Excuse me. The other thing is just more education. A lot of times, it's not the designs or the things that are done upfront. It's usually the things that are done that weren't planned or the part of the project that wasn't planned that ends up basically being the area that, "Oh, man. That just didn't work out the way that we wanted it to," and so I think that we all have to realize that there is a little bit of a journey to this. It's been an evolution from where we have been 10 years ago even, but it continues to get better. New design, we're really doing after action reviews. We're actually consistently getting better, I think, throughout the process, and I think that that's even now extending itself to working together for the long term. It's not just about this one project. It's about what's the new facility look like, but then what's the next one? What are we going to take from this project to the next one? I think that's working together a little bit more to understand what we're trying to accomplish.

Mikkel Svold (03:32):
You say that it has developed. Is that development over the last 50 years or is it rapidly over the last, let's say, decade something?

Steve Voelzke (03:41):
Yeah. In the U.S., I would say that there was the Food Modernization Act that happened to us over 20 years ago now. That was an accelerator that really pushed for this how can we do better with our food supply. In the U.S., I think it's one in six people get sick every year. About 3000 people die of food-related issues in regards to contamination. That has consistently gotten better. Food recalls have consistently gotten better due to turnover, and the things that we're dealing with today, we actually took a little bit of a step-down over the last couple of years. That's mainly because, I think, the turnover that we talked about in the last podcast, the turnover in the industry, not only the construction industry that builds the facilities, but also the facilities that we have, and so I think the next step that we need to take is how do we evolve to the next level where we're making it easier.

(04:52):
We have to make it easier to clean, we have to make it easier to install correctly, and then we have to also give what's the impact of an incorrect installation. When we have gone to the marketplace to try to help them get their job completed, it's about training. We do a certification program in our product category, and part of that certification is I'm not trying to teach an electrician how to install products. He knows how to do that. But there are certain considerations when you're in a food environment that aren't normal for... An environment where washdown doesn't have to happen or where food contamination is a challenge. Just making people aware that there's a different approach to take and a few things that you need to do a little bit different, it's a huge piece of it, but you got to do that because of turnover and because of the things that are happening.

(05:49):
You've got to make sure that you're diligent about doing that at time of construction. The other thing that we've done, that's really worked well, is we've worked with clients where we've done periodic audits during construction. It's not to point out what you're doing wrong. It's to say, "Hey, do it like this instead of like this," and catching it before there's this huge infrastructure already in place. How can we catch it before it happens? Train, go back and look maybe two weeks later or a month later and say, "Hey, do this. Do this, but not this."

Mikkel Svold (06:25):
I'm even thinking, catch it before production begins.

Steve Voelzke (06:29):
Yeah. It's during the construction phase, if we can catch it there and we can continue to improve that. It's done two things for our company. One, it's helped our customer accomplish what they need to accomplish, but it's also allowed us to see, "Hey, we have to make that easier to install," or, "Hey, we have to solve that problem because somebody installs it differently than what we thought."

Mikkel Svold (06:51):
You actually also get something out of it in return. Not only educating the construction workers setting up the plant, but also taking with you back learnings that, "Oh, this is maybe not as brilliant as we thought it was." Yeah.

Steve Voelzke (07:06):
Well, yeah. It's because sometimes if you design in a vacuum, you're going to miss the real practical application of something. We have one particular client that we've worked with for the last three years, and we meet every month for sometimes 10 minutes, sometimes a half hour, an hour with the Capital Projects team, and it's a standing meeting. With that meeting, it's really become an initiative. Sometimes they have lots of projects going on and we're talking about the different projects, and sometimes we're just having a collaboration to say, "Hey, this is what's going on in this plant. This is some things that we caught on a bill of material that was sent into us." That elevation of just putting attention on this part of the process continually makes them evolve in this area. Yeah, it's a two-way street.

(08:03):
I think it just open it up that communication, making sure there's a value proposition that we're creating, because our customers don't really care about [inaudible 00:08:12], and settings, and the things that we provide, but what they really care about is a more reliable and a more cleanable facility. If we can provide that based on understanding their world a little bit more, I think we all do a little bit better. My encouragement is we all have this product project, or this initiative or, this outcome that we're looking for. If we align on that, I think we make better solutions.

Mikkel Svold (08:41):
Is it for all suppliers like you are, is it for all sub-vendor suppliers to take on that role of trying to educate whether main company or what's the name of that, I don't know, but you know what I mean? The project company.

Steve Voelzke (09:00):
It's not normal. It really depends on the type of focus a company has. We like niche markets. We like to solve problems that haven't been solved before, and so when we take a look at something, we want to change and accomplish what our customers are trying to accomplish. We're not trying to be big. We're trying to be really good. To me, it's a lot more fun, because you can build a general product for a general market, but this is a specific application and a specific target and our company loves to do that kind of thing. We're very niche-oriented. I think it takes a certain type of company, but the market's a sizable market. It's a lot of people that are in the food and bev market. This is their vertical market. I don't think it's too special that basically nobody should do it, but I think anybody that's playing in this market has an obligation, I think, to design and build better products that help the customer solve what they're trying to solve.

Mikkel Svold (10:10):
Yeah. Well, I agree. Absolutely.

Steve Voelzke (10:13):
Yeah. Mikkel, it takes getting dirty. You have to go out. I mean, myself personally, I'm president of Robroy Industries but I love our customers, so guess what? I'm climbing around on equipment, looking at what can we do to make things better, but that's part of the joy of accomplishing something bigger and broader than just providing equipment.

Mikkel Svold (10:36):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Our time is flying, so I just want to recap maybe, I don't know if it's a recap, but I want to see if we can come down to some practical approaches. What steps would you recommend OEMs take to push this agenda in their own design, in their equipment? What steps to make things easier to install, easier to clean? Do you have anything?

Steve Voelzke (11:06):
Yeah, I think that instead of just the equipment design, you got to take your equipment design all the way to the practical running. That means installed. Is the overall system that I install, is it hygienically sound? Is it reliable? Is there anything that the sanitation department is going to do different that I'm not even thinking about? Go watch it be sanitized and say, "Oh, they're putting a bag over that because that's a problem." Well, guess what? It's not being sanitized then. My encouragement is really look at it in operation. My encouragement to people that provide is if there's an installer, make sure that they're not [inaudible 00:12:00] your design practices by doing an installation different.

(12:06):
I think that you have to be serious about education all the way to the construction, and then I think it's an evolution. Don't think you're going to get there day one and don't think you can just make this one initiative. Keep going, get feedback. I think that if you focus on the fact that our clients want a more reliable, safer system. We did a study before we even started, and there were two things. Our customers needed more reliability, and they were... Number one concern was contamination. It cost $10 million at a minimum for a feed recall in the U.S., and that doesn't include brand issues or anything like that.

Mikkel Svold (12:55):
Which is also very significant.

Steve Voelzke (12:57):
It's significant, and that's not even the legal... I mean, that's just like, "Let's get that stuff back out of the marketplace." By the way, it's not even any cheaper, so realizing everybody has a piece of that and realize everybody has a contribution to that. I think getting everybody on the same page is probably the most important thing, and then learning from every single installation, every single production facility that you build or modify for that matter.

Mikkel Svold (13:28):
Yeah, because we haven't talked about that and maybe we have just a short minute to touch upon it. You mentioned these double walling and you have ceilings that are hollow, so you have all your channels inside there. What if you are retrofitting?

Steve Voelzke (13:45):
Yeah, I think that's the issue of design as well. If we can design systems that have the ability to expand or to be changed without cutting, and drilling, and modifying to the point where you wouldn't want to do that in your production facility, if we can design better where we can make it easier for that to happen, easier for additions to happen without having to risk physical contamination, then that's one element of it. The other element is we just have to, again, train people to realize that there's bigger risks here and it's not a normal construction environment. It's something that is different and there's risk here that we should make sure that we're dealing with.

Mikkel Svold (14:36):
It's education on all levels, basically. It's not just all levels within the brand owner or final organization, but also the construction workers building the plant. It's the entire supply chain of equipment providers, and then, of course, comes all the operational staff. We have cleaners, but also... Yeah.

Steve Voelzke (14:57):
Well, and Mikkel, we've been fortunate because even the contractors, everybody that we've worked with, have been... We've learned just as much from them as they have from us. If we can continue to work together to take care of the last 10% that we got to fix, then we're seeing some great stuff, and learning a lot, and actually building a better product. Again, it's about a more cleaner and a more reliable system than we got all things going for us.

Mikkel Svold (15:31):
I think let those be the last words. Steve Voelzke from Robroy, thank you so much for joining. It was a real pleasure.

Steve Voelzke (15:38):
Yeah, you too.

Mikkel Svold (15:40):
To the listeners out there, if you like this episode,
share it with your friends or colleagues, and maybe they can learn something as well I did today. If you have any questions or if you have topics that you want us to bring up on this podcast, do reach out to us on podcast@ngi-global.com.

That was podcast@ngi-global.com. It's a little bit tricky to say, but I got it.
Yeah. Of course, give it a like or give it a share. Give it a review, if you
want. I'm sure that inside of that Spotify or Apple podcast that you are listening from, you can also comment directly in there, so feel free to do that. It'll be always nice to hear from you out there listening. I think that's it for today. All there to say is just thank you so much for listening.